Etymologically
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ambages

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [amˈbaː.ɡeːs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [amˈbaː.d͡ʒes][1]

Forms

ambāgēs f (genitive ambāgis); third declension[1] It is mostly plural; the ablative singular ambāge is frequent, the nominative singular is found in Tacitus, and the genitive plural is ambāgum.[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from ambi- (“around”) and agō (“to drive, lead”).[2][4] De Vaan lists it among the derivatives of agō, which he traces to Proto-Italic *ag-e/o- (“to do, act”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ-e/o- (“to drive, lead”), comparing Ancient Greek ἄγω (ágō, “to drive, lead”) and Sanskrit अजति (ájati, “drives”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first, in the Pseudolus: “what need is there for me to go round about the matter?”[2][4]

Semantic evolution

It is first a roundabout path and its windings: Virgil tells how Daedalus himself unravelled the tricks and windings of the labyrinth.[2] It is used of wandering movement, as in Ovid, and of any long, involved or shifting process, as when Silius writes that antiquity is hidden in the windings of time.[2] Of speech it is circumlocution, digression or evasion, the oldest sense, found in Plautus, and also ambiguity.[2][1] Pliny the Elder uses it of mental confusion about auguries.[2]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of long-winded talk.[2][4]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil of the windings of the labyrinth.[2][4]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of uncertainty.[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A roundabout path; windings, twists and turns, meanderings.[2][1]
  2. A wandering to and fro; an intricate or long-drawn-out process.[2][1]
  3. Circumlocution, digression, evasion; obscure or ambiguous speech.[2][3][1]
  4. Mental confusion or uncertainty.[2][1]

Word family

  • ambāgiōsus
  • ambago

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill